Modern Italian Poets; Essays and Versions by William Dean Howells

Author:William Dean Howells [Howells, William Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781797786568
Google: XSvIwgEACAAJ
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2019-02-22T00:52:26+00:00

Chè dalla bocca fuori gli pendea

La coda smisurata d' un serpente,

E il flagellava per la faccia, mentre

Il capo e il tronco gli scendean nel ventre.

Fischia la biscia nell' orribil lutta

Entro il ventre profondo del dannato,

Che dalla bocca lacerata erutta

Un torrente di sangue aggruppato;

E bava gialla, venenosa e brutta,

Dalle narici fuor manda col fiato,

La qual pel mento giù gli cola, e lassa

Insolcata la carne, ovunque passa.

It seems to have been the fate of Grossi as a poet to achieve fashion, and not fame; and his great poem in fifteen cantos, called “I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata”, which made so great a noise in its day, was eclipsed in reputation by his subsequent novel of “Marco Visconti”. Since the “Gerusalemma” of Tasso, it is said that no poem has made so great a sensation in Italy as “I Lombardi”, in which the theme treated by the elder poet is celebrated according to the aesthetics of the Romantic School. Such parts of the poem as I have read have not tempted me to undertake the whole; but many people must have at least bought it, for it gave the author thirty thousand francs in solid proof of popularity.

After the “Marco Visconti”, Grossi seems to have produced no work of importance. He married late, but happily; and he now devoted himself almost exclusively to the profession of the law, in Milan, where he died in 1853, leaving the memory of a good man, and the fame of a poet unspotted by reproach. As long as he lived, he was the beloved friend of Manzoni. He dwelt many years under the influence of the stronger mind, but not servile to it; adopting its literary principles, but giving them his own expression.

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